Quotes & Sayings About Christian Meditation

The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world. — Richard Sibbes

The important aim in Christian meditation is to allow God's mysterious and silent presence within us to become more and more not only a reality but the reality which gives meaning, shape and purpose to everything we do, everything we are. — John Main

The question may arise - how can credible Christian organizations justify and condone meditative practices that clearly resemble Eastern meditation? As pointed out earlier in this book, Christian terminology surrounds these practices. It only takes a few popular Christian leaders with national profiles to embrace a teaching that sounds Christian to bring about big changes in the church. Moreover, we have many trusting Christians who do not use the Scriptures to test the claims of others. Building an entire prayer method around an out-of-context verse or two is presumptuous, at best. Now more than ever, it is critical that Christians devote themselves to serious Bible study and discernment regarding this issue. — Ray Yungen

Nearly all samurai practice Zen - it is the Way of Enlightenment."
"Possibly the light of Zen is so strong that it has blinded me to its virtue." Yoshitoki smiled.
"It is very good discipline for the mind, as the martial arts are for the body." Kenmotsu looked very smug as he said this. "I do Zazen twice a week."
"I think it will do no-one any harm, though personally I find it more pleasant to think than to empty my mind of thought. — Erik Christian Haugaard

In other words, thinking aims at and ends in contemplation, and contemplation is not an activity but a passivity; it is the point where mental activity comes to rest. According to traditions of Christian time, when philosophy had become the handmaiden of theology, thinking became meditation, and meditation again ended in contemplation, a kind of blessed state of the soul where the mind was no longer stretching out to know the truth but, in anticipation of a future state, received it temporarily in intuition. — Hannah Arendt

Everything he wrote aims at awakening others to the contemplative dimension in themselves. His contemplative theology-as well as his entire theological "system"-emphasizes the ultimate value of the experiential approach to the Divine Reality. To this end, he encouraged a rigorous sauJhaaaa-, or spiritual practice. This practice includes meditation (dbyiuia) and asceticism (tapas), and Father Bede practiced both with extreme assiduousness as the way to come to mystical realization and identification with the Absolute, to have knowledge of God (brahmavidya), which is like the &iosis of the Christian tradition or jnana in the contemplative way. — Wayne Teasdale

Clean hearts and healthful food, exercise, early sleep and fresh air, wholesome recreation and meditation combined with optimism that comes from fighting for the right and knowing you'll eventually win for keeps - this is the tonic every true Christian patriot needs and deserves. — Ezra Taft Benson

As we discard a limited mind and a life of limitation to step into the grandness of vastness, we realize infinity itself to be the Guru and all that we do as grace. As we traverse through consciousness that is the Guru, we become the Guru and each thought of ours is perfect in the now, as scriptures. Consciousness is the Guru, the wisdom. — Nandhiji

I need the spiritual revival that comes from spending quiet time alone with Jesus in prayer and in thoughtful meditation on His Word. — Anne Graham Lotz

there are words and phrases in the Christian theological tradition so "thick" and so fraught with accumulated meaning that we can meditate on them in such depth that they yield, in that profound meditation, a whole range of meanings available to us not only in the words themselves but in the ways in which these words have been received within the Christian community over the past two millennia. — Braaten

Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance. — William Law

The immense distance between God and humanity is the indispensable backdrop to a Christian idea of revelation. To reduce God to the level of human thought and human imagination, so that we can comprehend God, is to lose a sense of the very thing that distinguishes God as God. — A.J. Conyers

The mark of the Christian is the willingness to look for the Divine in the flesh of a babe in a crib, the continuing Christ under the appearance of bread on an altar, and a meditation and a prayer on a string of beads — Fulton J. Sheen

[I]t is not hasty reading
but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching of the flower, which gathers honey
but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most
but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian. — Thomas Brooks

The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God's presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God's word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it. — J.I. Packer

There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in Christ. Sometimes prayer, meditation and contemplation are 'death' - a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance. Note how common this theme is in the Psalms. If we need help in meditation we can turn to scriptural texts that express this profound distress of man in his nothingness and his total need of God. Then as we determine to face the hard realities of our inner life and humbly for faith, he draws us out of darkness into light - he hears us, answers our prayer, recognizes our need, and grants us the help we require - if only by giving us more faith to believe that he can and will help us in his own time. This is already a sufficient answer. — Thomas Merton

Prayer changes from entreaty to thanksgiving, and meditation on the divine truths of faith fills the heart with a sense of jubilation and unimpeachable hope. This hope is a foretaste of future blessings, of which the soul even now receives direct experience, and so it comes to know in part the surpassing richness of God's bounty, in accordance with the Psalmist's words, 'Taste and know that the Lord is bountiful' (Ps. 34:8). For He is the jubilation of the righteous, the joy of the upright, the gladness of the humble, and the solace of those who grieve because of Him. — Gregory Palamas

Consequently, Christian meditation is entirely trinitarian and at the same time entirely human. In order to find God, no one need reject being human personally or socially, but in order to find God all must see the world and themselves in the Holy Spirit as they are in God's sight. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

The darkness is still with us, O Lord. You are still hidden and the world which you have made does not want to know you or receive you ... You are still the hidden child in a world grown old ... You are still obscured by the veils of this world's history, you are still destined not to be acknowledged in the scandal of your death on the cross ... But I, O hidden Lord of all things, boldly affirm my faith in you. In confessing you, I take my stand with you ... If I make this avowal of faith, it must pierce the depths of my heart like a sword, I must bend my knee before you, saying, I must alter my life. I have still to become a Christian. - Karl Rahner, PRAYERS FOR MEDITATION — Kathleen Norris

The truly Christian imagination never lets Jesus Christ out of her sight. — Richard J. Foster

In the silence, whether we listen to the creation around us, the words of revelation, or the deepest stirrings of our own hearts, we begin to perceive another voice, one that is too often lost in the static of life. It is no use saying: "Speak, Lord, your servant wants to hear," if We never risk the silence to listen. 48 — M. Basil Pennington

Another of the things I started to do during this time was what Buddhists normally call "meditation" or, in Christian terms, "contemplative prayer". It began to supersede deipnosophy as my favorite hobby. — Sara Maitland

Hence the aim of meditation, in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently 'scientific' knowledge of God, but to come to know him through the realization that our very being is penetrated with his knowledge and love for us. Our knowledge of God is paradoxically a knowledge not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence. We have no other reason for being, except to be loved by him as our Creator and Redeemer, and to love him in return. There is no true knowledge of God that does not imply a profound grasp and an intimate personal acceptance of this profound relationship. — Thomas Merton

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian. — Joseph Hall

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive. — Dalai Lama

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction — Jarett Sabirsh

I used homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and meditation in conjunction with my chemotherapy to help me get stronger again after the cancer. I also chanted with Buddhist friends and prayed with Christian friends. I covered all my bases. — Olivia Newton-John

Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different. — Richard J. Foster

Meditate." Meditation doth discriminate and characterise a man; by this he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad; let me allude to that; "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7. As the meditation is, such is the man. Meditation is the touchstone of a Christian; it shows what metal he is made of. It is a spiritual index; the index shows what is in the book, so meditation shows what is in the heart. Thomas Watson's Saints — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Live each day with ecstatic serenity — Lailah Gifty Akita

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them ... Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord ... — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Many questing young people and stressed older people nowadays seek relaxation through meditation. They look for it in Hindu, Buddhist and other Eastern religions. They are often surprised to learn that there is such a way within the Christian tradition, a way that is known as contemplation. — Ray Simpson

If you are a Buddhist, inspire yourself by thinking of the bodhisattva. If you are a Christian, think of the Christ, who came not to be served by others but to serve them in joy, in peace, and in generosity. For these things, these are not mere words, but acts, which go all the way, right up to their last breath. Even their death is a gift, and resurrection is born from this kind of death. (157) — Jean-Yves Leloup

Because I am a Christian, therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God's Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scriptures in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God's love, as we strive daily to become better people. The Christmas message shows us that this love is for everyone. There is no one beyond its reach. — Queen Elizabeth II

Meditation helps me feel the shape, the texture of my inner life. Here, in the quiet, I can begin to taste what Buddhists would call my true nature, what Jews call the still, small voice, what Christians call the holy spirit. — Wayne Muller

Owen did not understand "beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" to be either an esoteric subject or something only for certain highly spiritual kinds of people. With great force he argued that no one "will ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world."287 This raises the stakes on prayer and meditation to high levels. Owen held that, unless you learn how to behold the glory of Christ, you are not actually living a truly Christian life in this world. — Timothy Keller

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553). — Richard Baxter

One of the best stories of the early Christian desert hermits goes like this: 'Abbe Lot came to Abbe Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: Now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire? — Annie Dillard